CJ Bersamin eyes ‘massive revision’ of Rules of Court

Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin bared on Wednesday three priority reform initiatives geared towards enhancing the effectiveness of the Philippine justice system.

At an event in Manila held a day after taking his oath as the High Court’s top magistrate, Bersamin said there was a need to make “massive revisions” to the Rules of Court.

“This is the main body of our precedural law and this is entrusted only to the Supreme Court to modify or revise or amend, improve or to diminish,” Bersamin said in a speech.

“These Rules of Court have been there since 1940. They were revised in 1964, then there were sporadic revisions. Until, in 1997, the major part of these rules was revised — the civil procedure,” he added.

The newly-minted Chief Justice explained that the attempt to revise was intended “to make our judicial processes adapted to technology" and will, in turn, "ensure the speedy disposition of cases and the access to justice for the poor.”

A second initiative Bersamin mentioned was tapping law students and law schools to “assist the poor and the marginalized in this country gain access to legal services.”

For this, the Chief Justice said he and then-fellow Associate Justice Alexander Gesmundo had led a small group in visiting top law schools in the United States last October.

Here, Bersamin said, they learned how law students were trained to “provide access to quality legal services to several sectors in American Society.”

“We have been productive in that mission and shortly we may initiate in the supreme court certain steps in order to translate these things that we learned from them into reality,” he said.

Lastly, Bersamin said he wants to ensure that lower courts are beneficiaries of reform initiatives.

“Another initiative is to have the lower courts become the beneficiary of reform initiatives quickly through physical infrastructure improvement, utilities enhancement and similarly intended reforms and enhancements,” he said.

Bersamin bared his reform initiatives as he led the culmination of judicial reform projects which aims to improve the Philippine court system.

Among the earlier implemented projects were the "eCourt," a case management software geared towards improving how courts record information; monitor case flow and provide public access to case status; as well as "Hustisyeah!" a one-time decongestion of 175 heavily congested courts nationwide.

The "Judicial Strengthening to Improve Court Effectiveness (JUSTICE) Project" was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) and The Asia Foundation (TAF).

"I hope that our partners will not hesitate to support our reform initiatives geared to improve the Philippine justice system," said the Chief Justice. —LDF, GMA News